I’ve been meaning to get around to doing this for a while, and since Adrian got himself a new MacBook Pro, I’ve felt the insatiable urge to make sure he gets the best software from the outset. I think they’re all Universal (correct me if I’m wrong) binaries, so will run supa-comfortably on PowerPC and Intel Macs. I’ll update this post (and increase the version number) when I make an update, so permalink, digg and del.icio.us away. Feel free to post your recommendations as comments, too. Here goes…
Internet Tools
- Adium X
- Forget the Microsoft MSN Client – The instant messaging client for Mac OS X is Adium. I recommend the Milk icons and MSN Animated smileys.
- Bittorrent
- The best client for the Mac happens to be the official one.
- Flickr Uploadr
- Great utility for getting your pictures onto your Flickr.
- GarageSale £
- Lovely eBay selling frontend.
- KisMAC
- Use your Airport Card to join closed wireless networks. May not be particularly legal in your state/province.
- Mail
- After suffering Entourage shortly after I switched, then wasting minutes of my life waiting for Thunderbird, I saw the light, and realise now why He gave us Mail. Even better on a widescreen Mac when you plug in Letterbox.
- Safari
- The slickest OS X web browser. If you want an interface cluttered with extensions and widgets and themes and crap, go get FireFox 2. If you want to make your way around the web faster than a PC user, use Safari.
- Skype (Video Preview)
- Your average, everyday Skype, but with video conferencing to Windows machines too!
Web Development
- Creative Suite 2 £
- Adobe’s imaging and design suite is still the best. Expensive, but for good reason.
- iBiz £
- Time/project management. Plugs into iBank £, by the same company.
- Parallels Desktop £
- Much more than a web development tool, but so useful as one that I’m putting it here. You need to see what your site looks like in Windows XP? ME? 98SE? Use Parallels on an Intel Mac. Take advantage of that Sudden Motion Sensor in your laptop and hook SlapBook and VirtueDesktops into it to impress your mates.
- TextMate £
- Code editor. Solid stuff. If you don’t like the interface, try taking a step back in time to the days of BBEdit.
- Transmit £
- The FTP client on a Mac. For SCP, see Fugu.
- WriteRoom
- Totally stripped-down, full-screen text editor. For when can’t afford to be distracted.
- Xylescope
- An absolutely wonderful CSS dissection and DOM explorer. Why did no one tell me about this sooner?
Video Playback
- Flip4Mac
- WMV codec for Quicktime - no need to install the Windows Media Player. Now endorsed by Microsoft themselves!
- NicePlayer
- Beautiful, simple and versatile video player. If you want something a bit more tooled up, try VLC.
- Perian
- Comprehensive codec pack for Quicktime and Core Video. Lets you play your downloaded movies in FrontRow, NicePlayer, and so on.
Useful Stuff
- Carbon Copy Cloner
- If you’re taking your Mac in for repair, or just want to get some peace of mind in case the worst happens, CCC gives you a total backup image quickly and easily.
- Disk Inventory X
- Where did all your hard disk space go? Scrutinise and explore a the proportional diagram of the contents of your drives.
- DiskWarrior £
- Even though it’s OS 9 heyday is long past, I’ve still seen DiskWarrior magically repair Tiger installs that refused to boot. Keep a copy of the boot CD by your desk, though don’t even try it on a Mac with less than 256mb of RAM. It’ll crawl.
- Little Snitch £
- Blocks applications from accessing the internet without your consent - great for stopping those sneaky programs phoning home for activation.
- Office 2004 £
- Microsoft’s suite is still, unfortunately, the lingua franca of office documents. If you insist on buying it, the Student and Teacher edition doesn’t need to be sold to a student or teacher, comes with three licenses, and is exactly the same, as the Standard edition. Except it costs almost two thirds less. Alternatively, I’ve also heard good things about iCdocs, a view-only widget.
- OnyX
- This may be heresy, but I keep my Dock in the bottom right corner of me screen, reaching upwards, as small as possible, without any magnification effects. OnyX lets me do that.
- QuickSilver
- Powerful launching application. A little weird at first, but the fasted way to get stuff done once you get the hang of it. You’ll never use your mouse again.
- Remote Desktop £
- Apple’s it-just-works remote access program. More powerful than you’ll need it to be, though the compression could do with some work.
- Remote Desktop Connection
- Useful for web development as well as remote access, RDC is compact and fairly useful. Somewhat out of character for Microsoft.
- Renamer4Mac
- If you’ve ever needed to rename a whole heap of files, you know how useful an application like this can be. A few duds, then I found this. Great stuff.
- SerialBox
- Monthly-updated database of serials and cracks for all the applications you’re too cheap to pay for.
- StuffIt Expander
- The WinZip equivalent. AladdinSys have made this free application increasingly difficult to download, though it does exist. You’ll probably end up downloading and cracking StuffIt Deluxe £.
- SuperCal
- Monitor colour calibration. More comprehensive than the OS X Displays Preference Pane. Useful for older TFT’s.
- Toast Titanium £
- Your first and last stop for CD/DVD Authoring. Versatile, powerful, and user-friendly. Show this to a Windows user lumbered with Nero or Easy CD. They’ll cry green tears.
Fun Stuff
- Google Earth
- …needs no introduction.
- MacSaber
- If you’re using an iBook, PowerBook, MacBook or MacBook Pro, you can impress your friends by making lightsaber noises while swinging your laptop around. Insurance optional.
- Photo Desktop
- A little clunky in the interface department, but this little program lets you arrange polaroids of your pictures onto your desktop wallpaper. Cute as buttons.
- Tickr
- Searchable, scrolling Flickr image bar. If only there was a version of this for iStock. The author’s newer version, Slide for Mac, is a little too cluttered and overwrought for me, so I’ll stick with the older, more fun version.
Widgets
- AirPort Radar
- Want a fast live readout of WiFi signals in range? This thing is sweet.
- Flight on Time
- Enter your flight number and select your airline to find out whether you should head to check in – or stay sipping your latté in the airport’s wifi hotspot.
- Lorem Ipsum
- Instead of going to Lipsum.com every time you need some filler, hit F12 and choose how much you want with a handy scrollbar, then send it to your clipboard.
- Remote Desktop Widget £
- Providing you have Apple’s Remote Desktop installed, this widget show’s you a miniature, interactive live screen of a chosen target PC. Good for keeping an eye on what’s happening at home.
- UK Train Times
- What time is the next train home? Now you can check your Dashboard to find out. The only downfall is that multiple instances of the widget can’t display different stations. Oversight!
November 5th, 2006 at 11:00 pm
A similar list with a few you may not have seen: http://macspecialist.org/content/articles/essential_apps/
Looks like I have a lot of playing to do
A.